Saturday, September 17, 2016

The Privatized Beaded Necklace “School of the Future”

The PBS NOVA “School of the Future” was interesting in that many corporate messages were strung together like an expensive necklace made of plastic beads.

Grit, mindset, brain studies, social-emotional learning…you name it…it was there. Showcased individuals gave shout-outs to others in the program. Sal Kahn yelling out to students that they all have a mindset was one example. The brain study that praised Springboard Collaborative was another.

Eileen Campion, a publicist for NOVA, was kind enough to ask me if I had watched the program and whether my opinion had changed from just viewing the promo. She also reminded me of the link PBS.Org/Nova. I encourage everyone to watch “School of the Future.” I think it does a good job of covering the changing school reforms that affect our public schools. It doesn’t matter if we don’t agree. We should all understand what’s happening.

There were a couple of things about the program that I liked, and much that left me worried. While the program didn’t discuss digital instruction as much as I thought it would, it was in the background. The Alt School and Springboard Collaborative were The Privatized Beaded Necklace “School of the Future”: